Is it safe to diet during pregnancy?

I don't recommend it – pregnancy is not the time to diet. Normally, you should gain about 25 to 35 pounds during pregnancy. If you're overweight, you may want to shoot for 15 to 25 pounds. The recommendation for women who are obese is to gain between about 11 and 20 pounds. (Find out more about pregnancy weight gain.)

Some gain is inevitable given the weight of the baby, the enlarged uterus, the placenta, and the amniotic fluid. But that's weight that should disappear quickly once the baby is born.

On average you should be getting about 2,500 calories a day (that's up from about 2,100 when you're not pregnant). You need those calories and so does your baby.

Your physiology changes, too. Your blood sugar between meals can drop to very low levels, which is why so many pregnant women have the feeling that they're starving and need to eat between meals. If you go into pregnancy thinking you need to lose weight, you'll find yourself incredibly hungry.

Babies are pretty efficient at getting what they need, so it's more a threat to your health than your baby's if you don't eat enough. But there's a risk that your baby will grow poorly if you're really malnourished.

My approach is to think of these months as part of a larger piece. Any weight you think you should lose, you probably put on during the years and decades before you got pregnant. Instead of trying to lose weight while you're pregnant, use this time to develop the healthy eating habits that will carry you through the rest of your life.

Focus on eating well rather than reducing calories. It's good for you and your baby, and will help make sure you don't gain more weight than you need to during your pregnancy.

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